Ron Williams was abandoned by his parents at his babysitter’s house when he was three. The babysitter's family already consisted of eight boys, so there was much resentment on the family’s part. “They were verbally abusive,” Ron remembers. He was also sexually molested and raped from the age of three until he was twelve. Ron hated God while he was growing up, and in reaction to the things he experienced, he developed eating disorders.“On the outside, I appeared to be normal, but on the inside the pain controlled who I was and how I viewed life,” Ron said.
Sports became an outlet for Ron, and he was obsessed with being the best. At eighteen, Ron enlisted in the military and began competing in international sports events for the military, including boxing, football, swimming, and track. He was also introduced to the sport of bodybuilding and began winning regional, national, and world championships. In 1988, Ron won his first Natural Mr. Universe title.
While his life was still full of pain, Ron gave his life to the Lord when he was twenty-eight. His deliverance from what he calls “soul wounds”—what he calls deeply painful and personal wounds—wasn’t instantaneous. “I had to experience every single step,” Ron said.
When he met and fell in love with his wife, Tonja, Ron realized that falling in love with her made him deal with all of his emotions. “There have been extreme highs and extreme lows,” he reflected. They have been married for three years, and together they have ten children.
“Soul wounds contribute to being overweight,” explains Ron, who has scientifically researched and biblically studied the relationship between nutrition, Scripture, exercise, and prayer for more than twenty-five years. He has taught these on a college level at the Professional Fitness Institute in Las Vegas, Nevada, and the Utah Career College.
“More importantly, I have seen the results of physical and spiritual transformation in my own life,” he said.
Simply put, he explains, soul wounds cause a person to not only eat comfort foods, but also cause stress. Stress causes the body to release cortisol, which creates belly fat. Ron says there are scriptures that tell us about God’s promises concerning every area of our lives and that provide the necessary tools to decrease body fat permanently. If you are overweight and have tried to lose body fat but have not succeeded, Ron says it could be that something is broken. In those cases, we must take our broken circumstance to God and have confidence that He can fix it. When it comes to fat loss, we can no longer settle for temporary change; we need a life transformation for lasting results.
Ron’s Faith and Fat Loss eating plan is designed for fat loss, not physical fitness. There’s a difference: fitness programs are designed to increase athletic ability. Ron says you can send your body signals to burn fat around the clock, even while you sleep and eat. It is not a quick weight-loss program, and is divided into two phases. Phase 1 helps you break old habits and create healthy new ones. Phase 2 is the lifestyle change designed to continue fat loss until your goals are reached.
During the first twenty-one days (it takes twenty-one days to break old habits and form new ones), Ron says he commits four areas to God: eating, scripture study, exercise, and prayer—because losing body fat is more than reducing calorie intake.
“Permanent fat loss is not normally just a physical problem,” he said. “This program combines the physical and the spiritual so that you can finally acquire permanent fat loss and transformation.”
There are three foundational principles to his program:
- Eat five to six small meals each day
- Eat proper food combinations—never eat a carbohydrate alone, because calories are too easily converted to fat; proper eating combinations include protein, essential fatty acids, and carbohydrates
- Stop eating two hours before you go to bed
Ron's achievements include:
- Professional bodybuilder; winner of more than 200 titles, including seven times each Mr. Natural Universe, Mr. Natural Olympia, and Mr. Natural World
- Sole recipient, Natural Bodybuilder of the Decade, 1999
- Inducted into the International Natural Bodybuilding Association Hall of Fame, October 2008
- Degree in exercise physiology and nutrition, Utah Career College
- Pastor, Back to the Foundation Church, Salt Lake City
- Member of the International Nutraceutical Medical Advisory Board